Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Session Report – Woodchipper – Job Three: The Mendoza Hit

[This job happened April 18th, May 9th, May 23rd, June 6th, and June 13th. The first four sessions each had a small scene pushing the plot along until the job actually happened on the 13th. Void was busy scouting several other jobs and taking shifts in the MoM Defense job during the same time, so she was stretched a little thin.]PCs InvolvedThe Fin – female human con artist and gambler from India, by way of Russia, posh and elegantVoid – female human physical adept B&E specialist, a shadow that blends in easilyBookie – male elf alcoholic hacker, favors whiskey with a whiskey chaserMurdoc – male elf kilt-wearing street mage, at home with the hobos

NPC’dSin – male human rigger, knows exactly the wrong thing to say and says itcoldpulse – female dwarf decker NPC that occasionally works with the Pleiades GroupTuesday, March 31, 2076The Fin received a call in the morning from a gentleman identifying himself with a southern UCAS accent as “Mr. Johnson.” Mr. Johnson said he had seen the ad discussing discrete services and requested a mobile meeting to discuss a contract job. The Fin decided to go, but she would take precautions. After she accepted the meeting, Mr. Johnson told her a car would pick her up at the Charles Royer Station in Tacoma shortly after 2:13 PM. She should look for the driver with an AR sign saying “Medical Motors” and looking for Ms. Fin in the Ground Transportation area.After the call was over, The Fin contacted Sin, saying she needed him to drive her to a meeting with Mr. Johnson and needed Sin to monitor the broach with the built in Fly-Spy drone to make sure she returned from the meeting safely. Sin agreed and picked her up in a BMW 400GT he had on loan from Kaylee.They arrived at the Charles Royer Station at 2:00 PM, just as the bullet train from San Francisco arrived at the station. The Fin was able to mingle with the arriving passengers in the luggage pick-up area before taking the escalator down to the Ground Transportation area. There she spotted the driver with the Medical Motors AR sign and introduced herself as Ms. Fin. The driver walked her over to a waiting limousine and held the door open for her. The Fin entered the limo and took a seat. The back was empty except for a fully stocked, automated wet bar and an AR sign simply saying “One Moment”.After closing the door, the driver climbed into the front, put the vehicle into gear, and pulled out of the waiting area. When the car got underway, the “One Moment” sign disappeared and a gentleman in a suit with droopy eyes the color of turquoise, thick, wavy, brown hair, and a long beard and a mustache appeared in AR, apparently sitting at the front of the seating area with his back to the driver.Mr. Johnson thanked The Fin for taking the meeting and politely asked if she would like a drink. She accepted a quality whiskey from the automated wet bar, but did not drink from it. Mr. Johnson explained he wanted a computer technician at a research facility killed in the server room no later than April 8th. The kill must be bloody, but no guns or evidence of intrusion. The job would pay 45,000¥ upon delivery of photos of the dead technician in situ. The Fin asked about the name of the technician or if there was a picture of the unfortunate person. Mr. Johnson simply said, “It doesn’t matter who gets killed as long as it’s a technician, in the server room, it’s bloody, and no one is seen or recorded doing it.” The Fin negotiated with Mr. Johnson, talking him up to 49,500¥ due to the short time frame and difficulty [plus a really good Negotiation roll].Once the negotiations were over, Mr. Johnson’s AR image disappeared and the driver brought the limo back to the Charles Royer Station and let The Fin out of the back seat. The Fin left the untouched whiskey back in the limo. [The Fin did not drink the whiskey for two reasons: 1) she was uncertain of her host and a little paranoia is good for a fixer, and 2) she’s a booze snob and anything “dispensed” would have an inferior taste to a properly poured drink.]While Sin was driving The Fin back to her residence, The Fin called Void and offered the job to Void to plan and execute. The Fin quoted the job at 44,000¥. Void accepted the contract and then ran a matrix query to find out what business was at the given address. It was the Seattle offices for Mendoza Telecommunications of Houston. Void had never heard of them before and what information was publicly available indicated they were a mid-level telecommunications R&D group.Wednesday, April 1, 2076Late in the afternoon, after performing the ZAT SIN Codes run, Void asked Bookie to infiltrate the local Mendoza host to get floor plans of the Seattle office. Bookie had heard of the Mendoza host by reputation and knew one other important fact about Mendoza Telecommunications of Houston – it was wholly owned by Aztechnology. With that in mind, he asked coldpulse to back him up on the run.The initial infiltration of the host went well, with both Bookie and coldpulse easily getting in. There were several Patrol ICs active inside, but Bookie and coldpulse avoided their combined attention. In a low security folder, Bookie located a set of fire escape plans for the building based on the architectural drawings and decided this would be a good place to start. Unfortunately, both he and coldpulse completely miss the data bomb hidden inside the file. The data bomb damaged both of their decks and alerted all the Patrol IC, forcing Bookie and coldpulse bail with the data. Both deckers agreed to never mention the data bomb to anyone and started repairing their decks. Bookie sent Void what floor plans he could escape with, telling Void, “That’s all I found.” Void sighed and started studying the floor plans.Thursday, April 2, 2076MorningWanting a better feel for the Mendoza building and its surroundings, Void rode over on her Suzuki Mirage motorcycle. The Mendoza offices were a large three-story building that sprawled across half a city block with the other half of the block being employee parking. There were some 4-6 story residential buildings to the west, across the street from the front of the building. The block to the south was a park for Mendoza employees [and the site of future expansion]. The street between the office and the park was private and used for delivery trucks only, with a guarded gate at each end. The block to the north was mixed commercial use across a broad, major street that cut through the area.Casually pacing out the distances, Void decided she was going to jump across the smaller street in front of the offices from the top of one of the residential buildings. She left the area before any corporate security started paying attention to her.EveningOnce the sun had set, Void returned to the area of the Mendoza offices. Void took some time to observe the alley behind the residential buildings facing the Mendoza building. Once she had a feel for the alley, she used a combination of gymnastics, parkour, and Physical Adept powers to quietly make her way up to the roof along the outside of the building. The roof was in deep shadow from the street lights and new moon, but her low light goggles allowed her to move across the roof with cat-like grace, easily avoiding everything on the roof. Once in place, Void used her enhanced perception and optical equipment to observe the security on the roof of the Mendoza building.Taking her time and making notes, Void was able to put together a good security map of the roof. There were motion sensors around the roof perimeter. There were a handful of access panels on the roof with subtly marked paths between them and nearby machinery. Finally, there was a rooftop heliport with a small, enclosed, waiting area with stairs down into the building interior. There were some cameras mounted to observe the helipad and waiting area, but Void picked it as the best chance of entry without being noticed.Void contacted Murdoc and asked him if he wanted to make some easy money…Friday, April 3, 20763:00 PMVoid and Murdoc met in the alley behind the residential buildings. The sky was heavily overcast and it was raining. Murdoc cast improved invisibility, first on Void and then on himself, using a focus to sustain the spell on Void. Murdoc then found a mostly dry corner in the alley to settle into and make himself comfortable. Just like home.Void made her way to the roof of a six-story building across from the Mendoza building. She checked the roof of the Mendoza building one last time and found a helicopter on the helipad, its blades turning at an idling speed. Perfect. The combination of rain and helicopter draft would ruin the ability of the motion detectors to notice her jump and landing.Void backed up to the far side of the roof to give her space to work up enough momentum. She then focused her chi to boost her strength and sprinted across the roof, leaping into space towards the roof of the Mendoza building, three stories below, across the street, and behind a fence.Void’s combination of momentum, Light Body, Boosted Strength, and Traceless Walk carried her all the way across to the roof of the Mendoza building where she landed as softly as a cat, Mendoza security completely unaware of her presence. Void padded her way over to the waiting area, where the helicopter pilot was looking at some AR weather charts of the area. While Void was trying to decide on the best way to bypass the pilot, two executives came up the stairs from below and the three of them exited the covered waiting area to board the helicopter. Void used the gap behind them to sneak in through the door before it closed. As the helicopter spun up for flight, Void pulled some cloths from a watertight pouch and dried herself off. [Damp foot prints are a dead giveaway for an invisible person.]Once dry, Void used her memory of the floor plan to quickly make her way down into the building and to the server room through the mostly empty hallways. At the server room, she found a card-scanning maglock, which her locksmithing skills quickly bypassed. As she entered the server room, she noticed a mana barrier protecting the room, stopping in time to avoid losing her invisibility. She took some time slowly easing her way into the room, making it inside without losing the invisibility or breaking the barrier and alerting security.Inside the server room were two women working on one of the servers and talking to each other in Spanish [which Void does not speak]. Void quietly closed the door and made her way over to a place in the room where she could watch the women and the single entrance. After a 10 minute wait, the two women finished whatever they were working on and packed up their equipment. Void waited until they were about to exit the room before knocking into one of the servers, making it release some electronic tones. Both women noticed the noises, but, luckily, only one of them started walking over to where Void was, waving off the other woman, who left the room.Once the door closed, Void boosted her strength again and then buried a throwing dagger deep into the neck of the woman, killing her nearly instantly. Void grabbed the falling body and spread the arterial spray around. Void then took out another throwing dagger and roughly cut out the first dagger, letting the blood spatter as much as possible. Void spent a few more seconds making the corpse a bloody mess, per the contract instructions, and then took a couple of quick pictures as proof the job had been accomplished. Void used the same cloths from before to quickly wipe any blood off herself and particularly her shoes before storing the cloths again.Checking the time to verify the other woman had a full minute head start on leaving, Void stepped out of the server room. There were people standing in the hallway, looking up at the ceiling while a pinging noise issued from ceiling speakers. Void’s paranoia kicked in majorly and she decided to bolt. Being invisible with Traceless Walk and Wall Running allowed her to move among the employees like a ghost. Passing through the first hallway intersection, Void spotted an EM Team running down the center of the side hallway towards the server room. Void continued towards the helipad.Just as Void returned to the helipad waiting area, a building wide alarm went off. She pushed through the doorway to the roof just as armored doors started slamming down, securing the waiting area. Void charged across the now empty helipad to the nearest roof edge. Not even pausing, Void leapt from the roof and dropped three stories down to the sidewalk just outside the fence, where her Light Body power kept her from becoming a splat on the concrete. [Or splashing any rain puddles under her and possibly drawing the attention of Mendoza security.]Void resumed running, arriving at her waiting motorcycle in less than a minute. She called Murdoc and told him to drop the invisibility spell. Void used another cloth from her motorcycle’s storage to wipe any last blood off herself [greatly assisted by the rain] before starting the bike’s engine and driving away. Her path out of the area gave her a last view of the Mendoza building where guards with darkly-colored dogs with red glowing eyes were sweeping the grounds inside the fence.Hellhounds. Void shuddered from bad memories.Void sent the pictures to The Fin and two hours later the team was paid.End of Run[Void’s immediate decision to run after leaving the server room was the only reason she escaped as easily as she did. I had worked out the time table of when the EM Team would arrive and how quickly they would alert security. Running flat out and making Gymnastics rolls to avoid running in to people gave her just enough time to escape.][I use a random name generator (Seventh Sanctum’s Corporation Name generator) to generate the names of low- to mid-sized corporations. Sometimes I mix and match the results to get what feels right, which is where Mendoza Telecommunications of Houston came from. It’s link to Aztechnology was just too good a possibility to pass up. I was honestly surprised that Bookie’s player decided to keep that information secret from everyone else.]The other jobs are:OverviewZAT SIN CodesAquamatics Schematics

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